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Hoard of the Dragon Queen: The Story Thus Far…

Inn of the Trolls

We’re adding two new members to our weekly D&D campaign, so our DM wrote this “what has happened until now” to catch them up. Since I’ve been pretty inconsistent with chronicling our adventures, I got permission to repost it here :)

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The party came together as hired guards for a merchant caravan that was heading through a town called Greenest. Upon reaching Greenest, the party found that the town was in the process of being sacked. The merchant wanted nothing to do with this, turned around, and left the players to either follow or to assist the town. Being good adventurers (and otherwise ending the game before it began), the party opted to sneak around the periphery to recon the area.

It seemed that Greenest was beseiged by some kind of dragon cult comprised of kobolds and humans, some in cult regalia, and many in standard armor. The party helped a family reach the town’s keep, and met Governor Nighthill and his chief of security Escobert the Red. Neither knew why they were under attack, but they tasked the players (being skilled adventurers) with venturing outside of the keep to round up as many wayward villagers as they could to bring back to the keep.

Through several forays through the village, the party A) destroyed part of a mill, B) rescued many villagers from a fortifed church, and C) found themselves with a strange case of missing time after a botched attempt to introduce some freestyle RP into the game. Ultimately, the raiders massed outside the keep and one of their leaders — a half-dragon named Langdedrosa Cyanwrath — challenged a champion to a duel before they left. Gina, the party’s dwarf fighter, accepted, and while she held her own, she was ultimately cut down, and the raiders left.

After patching up the dwarf, Nighthill presented a young monk who was in a state of panic. His friend and mentor, Leosin, had gone missing, and was suspected of having either been captured by the raiders, or had followed the raiders to their camp. These monks, it was explained, were investigating this dragon cult, and the missing monk was painted as a bit obsessed. The party was asked to track the raiders, scout the camp, find the monk, and maybe recover some of the villager’s valuables.

The party tracked the raiders to a canyon where the cultists had set up camp. During the after-raiding party, the adventurers were able to slip into undetected, but quickly blew their cover when they got a bit over-aggressive with some of the locals. Soon they found themselves captive, and held beside the elven monk that they had been sent to rescue. Thankfully, one of the party was able to slip his shackles and free the others, but as they started their escape, the elven monk opted to stay behind, promising to meet up with the party back in Greenest.

Once back in Greenest, Nighthill wanted to know exactly what the hell was going on in that camp. Back to the camp the players went. The place was now empty, but this allowed the players to investigate the mysterious cavern they had seen kobolds trucking goods into when they were here last. Ultimately, they discovered several unhatched dragon eggs, but opted to leave them alone and report back to Greenest.

Turns out that they had passed Leosin at some point, as he had returned to Greenest but had set out immediately for [I forget the name of the town!] where he wanted to meet the players once they had rested and resupplied.

Off to [I forget the name of the town!] the players rode. Upon arrival, they met with Leosin and a compatriot of his, a paladin of Torm named [Yeesh…I forgot his name too]. The Paladin was interested in carousing around the town, and dragged the players with him until it was time to get serious. He told the players that he and Leosin — who was a Harper — and others are concered about this dragon cult. They’ve been moving eastward, ransacking towns and villages and carting off their valueables to Torm knows where. A late breaking lead suggested that the Greenest cultsts were headed down-river to Baldur’s Gate, and were then establishing a caravan north to Waterdeep. Leosin and his Pal-adin (!) asked the players to take a chartered boat down the River Chionthar to Baldur’s Gate, hire themselves into whatever caravan the cultists were a part of, and find out where this treasure was headed, and why.

It was during the three day trip that the players got to relax, eat a lot, get attacked by the orchestra, and reconnect with old flames who for some reason where on this same ship headed in the same direction, but which have absolutely no relevance to the overall plot as specified in the “Hoard of the Dragon Queen” modele from Wizards of the Coast (all rights reserved).

In Baldur’s Gate, the players got themselves a job as protection for a “prefers the company of animals” merchant who is one of several wagons and carts headed to Waterdeep. Three of those carts were recognized as being staffed by cultists, so the players knew they were in the right place.

After several nights of travel, they happened upon their first inn while struggling against a rather nasty rain and thunderstorm. As luck would have it, it was not crowded. As un-luck would have it, the entire place had been booked by just four men who were mightily amused at the angry faces the players were making when they tried to secure rooms for themselves and their fellow caravan mates. This ended in a bloody brawl which saw three of the mysterious men dead, and one severely wounded and begging for his life.

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Tipa

Web developer for a Connecticut-based insurance company that's over 200 years old! Also a bicycler, a blogger, a kayaker, and a hunter of bridges.
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